The January challenge is officially over and despite the monumental efforts of everyone at GG York, we still had an impressive 20 legends turn up for tonight's session, inverting soil at Millennium Field.

Before we set off we awarded the prestigious January GoodGymer of the month award to the super-human Michael who ran a ridiculous amount of KMs whilst also completing a remarkable 23 good deeds. Top effort Michael, give that man plenty of cheers 🍻

We then set off to Millennium Field with Ed leading the run out and Jenna, Laura and Abigail as our backmarkers. Those at the front got a bit too far ahead so did some very questionable wall sits whilst they waited for the rest of the gang to catch up! And then we arrived at the task to be greeted by Maeve and Nicola from St Nicks.

Nicola stole Mitch, Michael, Martin and Stef (the Mmms for short) to do some forking compost work, whilst everyone else joined Maeve at the South end of the field to start digging out clumps of soil and then flipping it over, ready for wildflower seed to be spread on top.

You can tell a lot about someone by how they invert soil - Vicky

The instruction was to dig out random areas but that didn't stop some GoodGymers from getting quite artistic with their inverting. Ben created two very neat connecting squares, whilst James went for quantity over quality and had dug out the biggest patch by far, if not the neatest!

The task was soon complete and the final ask was to spread the seed around on top of the patches we had just dug out, before trampling them down. We then set off and picked up the Mmms en route to a fitness session on the other side of the bridge

We used the seating area next to Rowntree Park to do a series of exercises followed by a quick dash up the stairs and a sprint round to do it all over again. Mitch was like a man possessed, completing 6 full sets, with Jane not too far behind as our leading lady

It was then time for the brief jog back to CVS complete with a few nore wall sits along the way!

Holgate Community Garden are working hard to get on top of the weeds and cutting back in the garden ready for the spring so yet again Goodgym joined them for their monthly gardening together session. As Nicky had to get back to Harrogate after coming to York for the morning task, David, Laura and Nicky started the task 45 minutes early and were joined at 2pm by Jane and other people from the local area. We met Hannah, who had heard of GoodGym through a friend, and is hoping to join us at a group run session soon. Nicky cleared the dead leaves from the strawberry bed and weeded around it. Jane cleared the grass roots from one of the other beds ready for planting before helping with the long bed that Laura had been working on with others. David did some clearing and drew a plan of the garden, marking in the trees and bulb locations so the group know where to plant more bulbs in the Autumn. It was great to spot all the bulbs coming up giving a real sense that spring was coming soon and we found and replanted quite a few more bulbs that were just under the surface. In the end, as it was a lovely sunny afternoon, we were down for 2 hours between us rather than the one planned and made great progress.

Tonight was a very exciting night!

We had a great turnout for the last group run of January and smashed our January Challenge target.

We had two tasks going on. Rich led a group to St Chad’s scout hut with Clair bringing up the rear. This is what they got up to-

10 intrepid GGs, less hungry for fame, headed a little further over to St Chad's Scout Hut where they were set to work by Christine and Aidan clearing brambles. David pointed to a patch he'd cleared 18 months earlier that had run wild again. Clearly the task that keeps on giving. Nevertheless with a few secateurs and a couple of barrows we'd made a bit of a dent in the undergrowth and a sizable pile of prickles for the unwary. We then headed over to Millthorpe School to meet the others and the film crew for the fitness session.

The other group headed over to Wild Things Forest School where we were met by ITN news who wanted to do a piece about goodgym. We were kept busy shifting logs, big and small, spreading woodchip and breaking up stuff. This was all filmed along with interviews with Ed, Amy,Nick and Leanne from goodgym, and Emma from Wild Things Forest School, who all talked about how wonderful goodgym York is.

At the end of the session both groups joined up for a tabata session - 20 seconds of hard work with 10 second rest. This included the usual exercises but was adapted so the group got to can can, as requested!

We finished by running back to base waving at the camera as we passed. When we arrived back we were well rewarded for our 700m run with not one, not two, but three lots of baking, courtesy of Babs, Carl and Paul Kelly.

We now need to wait a few weeks until the ITN news is aired and we will all be famous!